Get-tough policies in US schools draw scrutiny
Discipline that ends in court being opposed
Racquel and Willie Williams (back) of Cypress, Texas, were angry over tickets that their sons received at school. (Michael Stravato for The Washington Post)SPRING, Texas - In a small courtroom north of Houston, a fourth-grader walked up to the bench with his mother. Too short to see the judge, he stood on a stool. He was dressed in a polo shirt and dark slacks on a sweltering summer morning.
“Guilty,’’ the boy’s mother heard him say.
He had been part of a scuffle on a school bus.
In another generation, he might have received only a scolding from the principal or a period of detention. But get-tough policies in US schools in the past two decades have brought many students into contact with police and courts - part of a trend that some specialists call the criminalization of student discipline.
Now, such practices are under scrutiny nationally. Federal officials want to limit punishments that push students from the classroom to courtroom, and a